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Obama Says Climate Change Is Harming Americans' Health
HughPickens.com writes: The Washington Post reports on new comments from President Obama, who says global warming isn't just affecting the weather — it's harming Americans' health. He has announced steps government and businesses will take to better understand and deal with the problem. Obama said hazards of the changing climate include wildfires sending more pollution into the air, allergy seasons growing longer, and rising cases of insect-borne diseases. "We've got to do better in protecting our vulnerable families," said Obama. "You can't cordon yourself off from air."
Speaking at Howard University Medical School, Obama announced commitments from Google, Microsoft and others to help the nation's health system prepare for a warmer, more erratic climate. Google has promised to donate 10 million hours of advanced computing time on new tools, including risk maps and early warnings for things like wildfires and oil flares using the Google Earth Engine platform, the White House said. Google's camera cars that gather photos for its "Street View" function will start measuring methane emissions and natural gas leaks in some cities this year. Microsoft's research arm will develop a prototype for drones that can collect large quantities of mosquitoes, then digitally analyze their genes and pathogens. The goal is to create a system that could provide early warnings about infectious diseases that could break out if climate change worsens.
Speaking at Howard University Medical School, Obama announced commitments from Google, Microsoft and others to help the nation's health system prepare for a warmer, more erratic climate. Google has promised to donate 10 million hours of advanced computing time on new tools, including risk maps and early warnings for things like wildfires and oil flares using the Google Earth Engine platform, the White House said. Google's camera cars that gather photos for its "Street View" function will start measuring methane emissions and natural gas leaks in some cities this year. Microsoft's research arm will develop a prototype for drones that can collect large quantities of mosquitoes, then digitally analyze their genes and pathogens. The goal is to create a system that could provide early warnings about infectious diseases that could break out if climate change worsens.
That doesn't mean it's not a reason for concern.
LA resident here. We're in a middle of a drought that's worse than the great depression dust bowl. My house is basically surrounded by kindling right now. the risk from wildfires is extraordinarily high. there were really bad fires last summer and there was a steady drizzle of ash onto the entire city. I would say that climate change is threatening my health.
Mosquitoes are not limited to warm climates, as anyone who has been to Alaska in the summer can confirm. If the government really wanted to do something about the illnesses these critters spread, they should re-authorize DDT. The "science" that led to the ban was junk, and tens of millions of humans have died needlessly because of malaria infestations which could have been prevented.
A nationalized system isn't the paradise you think it is. Just wait until you end up on a two year waiting list because your system is nationalized and there's no incentive for them to do any better, and you have no other options.
Bingo. This is nothing more than an excuse to pony up more money for research on "Climate change" or "Global warming"...or whatever the heck they are calling it now. Naturally, the Environmentalists and research scientists love this. Beats getting a real job I suppose...but I digress.
These climate models that this is based on are complete rubbish. There are so many variables that you can make them reach any conclusion you want simply by changing the values you input. We can't even predict an accurate weather forecast more than 10 days in the future. How could we possibly predict what the weather is going to be like in 100 years? Or 50 years? Or 1 year? Or even next month.
Don't take my word for it: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/com...
Have a read at that article.
I'm all for conservation and having more fuel efficient cars and less pollution and all that. I'm all for preserving the forests and ice caps. But let's not pretend that "climate change" is to blame for every drought or hurricane.
That doesn't mean it's not a reason for concern.
It may be a concern, or it may not, but the burden of evidence is on those who advocate spending public money. We have had a lot of alarmism about climate change, and while it has generated short term concern, in the long run it has eroded public support as the alarmist predictions fail to materialize. Advocates of climate change action should stop the shrill rhetoric, and focus on rebuilding their credibility. AGW is a serious problem, in my opinion, but we are failing to address it because the issue has been hijacked by people with other agendas.
Perhaps another way to say what he did is that communities and their populations have gradually adapted to their local environment by either infrastructure, or by natural "filtering" whereby those who couldn't tolerate local conditions moved elsewhere.
What climate change is doing is changing these "familiar" conditions and creating situations that didn't exist or were rarer before per given spot.
It seems you interpreted his speech as claiming the total "mass" of climate-related problems is increasing. Rather, I interpret it as saying the kinds of problems are being shuffled around from their "usual" spot, catching more unprepared. The total number of cards is roughly the same, but the deck is being shuffled.
Those used to dry weather may now have more floods. Those used to wet weather may now have more droughts. Those used to warm weather may now have more cold days. Those used to cool weather may now have more sweltering days. Etc.
Table-ized A.I.
It means it's a made-up problem. "Climate change is causing wildfires" is a red-herring: a lot of wildlife depends on fires to survive. Some tree seeds don't grow if they're not set fire to first; and the growth and spread of various species of underbrush rely on underbrush clearing every few years, historically done by wildfires.
We have fewer wildfires now due to suppression efforts, which we've scaled back massively because we realized suppressing wildfires is a really fucking bad idea. Global Wargarbling isn't causing wildfires, isn't increasing the amount of wildfire pollution in the air, and isn't threatening people by mechanisms spawned from wildfires.
This kind of spouting makes the President sound dangerously uneducated. We're lead to question more things: what is this lengthening of the allergy season, and how is it different from living in the South? Are we only concerned about half of the United States?
Another interpretation is that particulates from wildfires were a major health hazard pre-20th century, but no one cared because there were a million major health hazards. Since then we've gained the ability to strike a proper balance between fire suppression and controlled burns for ecosystem management. But now climate change means dryer, less healthy forests that make fire suppression much more difficult. Thus wildfire pollution is becoming a larger problem than it has been for recent history.
I stole this Sig